Anolther slow learner event.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
Friday, April 22, 2005
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Saturday, April 16, 2005
The suit Lincoln wore when he was assassinated
A four paragraph news story caught my eye recently and reminded me how fickle, indeed, is the finger of fate.
It was datelined Louisiana and concerned one George St. Pierre who claimed to have purchased for $10 a postage stamped-sized swatch of cloth that was supposedly snipped from the coat President Lincoln was wearing when he was assassinated.
The story said St. Pierre was planning to put the framed swatch up for sale on GoAntiques.com with a minimum bid of $1 million. It also said Lincoln collectors are skeptical.
However, old George’s claim might possibly be true—and I can tell you why.
In the fall of 1958, I came from Stars and Stripes in Tokyo, Japan, to work for the Greensboro (N.C.) Daily News as its political cartoonist. The editorial page staff secretary was Mrs. J. Marvin Smith. “Dot”, as she was fondly called was a vivacious lady I guessed to be in the upper sixties range, agewise. She was warm and wonderfully efficient at keeping us professionally correct and on schedule. She took my wife and I under her wing and we became good friends.
Over dinner and drinks one evening she revealed a remarkable story.
Her grandfather, Alphonse Donn worked as a personal guard in the White House and was a favorite of President Lincoln. After Lincoln was shot, Mr. Donn inquired of Mrs. Lincoln as to what he should do with the Brooks Brothers suit the President was wearing. It was unsightly and soaked with blood. Smith’s grandfather told her Mrs. Lincoln said something to the effect that she didn’t care, just get it out her sight—and gave it to him.
That is how the frock coat and pants came to be owned by Dorothy Smith and kept in a vault in Greensboro, North Carolina.
In 1875 P.T. Barnum tried to buy the suit, offering Smith’s grandfather $25,000 but he would not sell it. In 1915, the 64th U.S. Congress introduced a bill to buy the suit for the Lincoln Memorial for $7,500. Smith’s grandfather also turned them down. He kept the suit at his home and showed it to friends and visitors, but that proved to be an unfortunate decision.
“He found that when he turned his back or left the room, his visitors would cut souvenir snips of cloth from the sleeve,” Dorothy said. “The collar, however is intact, with bloodstains from the fatal bullet. There are some moth holes in the front of trousers, but those may have been made while Lincoln owned them He was not, from what I have read, the most careful man in his clothing habits.”
The suit and coat had been carefully authenticated. The clothing was made by Brooks Brothers for President Lincoln’s second inaugural and alleged to be made of wool finer than cashmere. In 1918, the seamstress who sewed the lining in the frock coat testified that it was, indeed, the one she worked on.
The lining was what made the long-tailed frock coat unique. The hand-stitching featured an intricate pattern, in color, of an American eagle, with its wings spread, holding in its beak a ribbon bearing the inscription “One Country, One Destiny.” The New York Times called it “the most expensive Brooks Brothers suit of all time.
Dorothy Smith also had letters from Mrs. Lincoln to her grandfather. She kept the papers in a safe deposit box.
By 1968, I had moved from the Greensboro Daily News, via the Kansas City Star to the Milwaukee Journal —and Dorothy Smith was now a widow living in Georgia on a meager retirement income. She was still trying to find a buyer willing to purchase the suit and donate it to the Lincoln Museum in the renovated Ford’s theater.
The Interior Department of the federal government wanted the clothing for display but the department could not get authorization to buy the historic apparel nor find a private patron to sponsor the purchase. Also, previous potential buyers were turned off by the shabby, crusted appearance of the outfit. Smith was asking $50,000 as a purchase price.
Brooks Brothers was approached by Interior Department officials asking them to purchase the Lincoln suit and donate it to the museum. A spokesman for the firm said he thought $50,000"was too high a price even for a President Lincoln owned Brooks Brother’s suit.”
In some desperation, Dorothy phoned me at the Journal to ask if I had any connections in Washington that I might tap—or any other ideas. I decided that before I tried to lobby a senator or congressman it would be wise to have a feature story as a foundation. A columnist friend at the paper interviewed Smith by phone and wrote a nice feature article.
As a result of that story, a Milwaukee based company ultimately purchased the suit and donated it to the Lincoln Museum—reportedly paying a 'whopping' price of $10,000. I often wondered what the donation appraisal figure turned out to be.
It was datelined Louisiana and concerned one George St. Pierre who claimed to have purchased for $10 a postage stamped-sized swatch of cloth that was supposedly snipped from the coat President Lincoln was wearing when he was assassinated.
The story said St. Pierre was planning to put the framed swatch up for sale on GoAntiques.com with a minimum bid of $1 million. It also said Lincoln collectors are skeptical.
However, old George’s claim might possibly be true—and I can tell you why.
In the fall of 1958, I came from Stars and Stripes in Tokyo, Japan, to work for the Greensboro (N.C.) Daily News as its political cartoonist. The editorial page staff secretary was Mrs. J. Marvin Smith. “Dot”, as she was fondly called was a vivacious lady I guessed to be in the upper sixties range, agewise. She was warm and wonderfully efficient at keeping us professionally correct and on schedule. She took my wife and I under her wing and we became good friends.
Over dinner and drinks one evening she revealed a remarkable story.
Her grandfather, Alphonse Donn worked as a personal guard in the White House and was a favorite of President Lincoln. After Lincoln was shot, Mr. Donn inquired of Mrs. Lincoln as to what he should do with the Brooks Brothers suit the President was wearing. It was unsightly and soaked with blood. Smith’s grandfather told her Mrs. Lincoln said something to the effect that she didn’t care, just get it out her sight—and gave it to him.
That is how the frock coat and pants came to be owned by Dorothy Smith and kept in a vault in Greensboro, North Carolina.
In 1875 P.T. Barnum tried to buy the suit, offering Smith’s grandfather $25,000 but he would not sell it. In 1915, the 64th U.S. Congress introduced a bill to buy the suit for the Lincoln Memorial for $7,500. Smith’s grandfather also turned them down. He kept the suit at his home and showed it to friends and visitors, but that proved to be an unfortunate decision.
“He found that when he turned his back or left the room, his visitors would cut souvenir snips of cloth from the sleeve,” Dorothy said. “The collar, however is intact, with bloodstains from the fatal bullet. There are some moth holes in the front of trousers, but those may have been made while Lincoln owned them He was not, from what I have read, the most careful man in his clothing habits.”
The suit and coat had been carefully authenticated. The clothing was made by Brooks Brothers for President Lincoln’s second inaugural and alleged to be made of wool finer than cashmere. In 1918, the seamstress who sewed the lining in the frock coat testified that it was, indeed, the one she worked on.
The lining was what made the long-tailed frock coat unique. The hand-stitching featured an intricate pattern, in color, of an American eagle, with its wings spread, holding in its beak a ribbon bearing the inscription “One Country, One Destiny.” The New York Times called it “the most expensive Brooks Brothers suit of all time.
Dorothy Smith also had letters from Mrs. Lincoln to her grandfather. She kept the papers in a safe deposit box.
By 1968, I had moved from the Greensboro Daily News, via the Kansas City Star to the Milwaukee Journal —and Dorothy Smith was now a widow living in Georgia on a meager retirement income. She was still trying to find a buyer willing to purchase the suit and donate it to the Lincoln Museum in the renovated Ford’s theater.
The Interior Department of the federal government wanted the clothing for display but the department could not get authorization to buy the historic apparel nor find a private patron to sponsor the purchase. Also, previous potential buyers were turned off by the shabby, crusted appearance of the outfit. Smith was asking $50,000 as a purchase price.
Brooks Brothers was approached by Interior Department officials asking them to purchase the Lincoln suit and donate it to the museum. A spokesman for the firm said he thought $50,000"was too high a price even for a President Lincoln owned Brooks Brother’s suit.”
In some desperation, Dorothy phoned me at the Journal to ask if I had any connections in Washington that I might tap—or any other ideas. I decided that before I tried to lobby a senator or congressman it would be wise to have a feature story as a foundation. A columnist friend at the paper interviewed Smith by phone and wrote a nice feature article.
As a result of that story, a Milwaukee based company ultimately purchased the suit and donated it to the Lincoln Museum—reportedly paying a 'whopping' price of $10,000. I often wondered what the donation appraisal figure turned out to be.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Above is a CT scan of Terri Schiavo’s brain that was part of the diagnosis process of Dr. Ron Cranford, a highly respected neurologist, who served on the ethics committee of the American Academy of Neurology. Dr. Cranford examined Mrs. Schiavo as part of the original trial. In describing the scan he said her brain showed very little but scar tissue and spinal fluid. An electroencephalogram measuring electrical activity in the thinking areas of her brain showed no evidence of continued function, he added. “It is totally flat—nothing, and this is very unusual,”Cranford said. “The vast majority of people in a persistent vegetative state show about 5% of normal brain activity.
Of the six other neurologists who have examined Schiavo , four agreed she was in a persistent vegetative state. The court rejected the diagnosis of the two dissenters, calling one of them a “self promoter” who “offered no names, no case studies, no videos and no test results” to support a claim that he could cure serious brain damage.
Of the six other neurologists who have examined Schiavo , four agreed she was in a persistent vegetative state. The court rejected the diagnosis of the two dissenters, calling one of them a “self promoter” who “offered no names, no case studies, no videos and no test results” to support a claim that he could cure serious brain damage.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Shame on them all!!
If anyone had doubts that the inmates are now running the asylum, they should certainly be laid to rest after the Terri Schiavo debate of the last twenty four hours! Sadly, we have now seen how far President George W. Bush and the Republican majority will go in pandering to right wing religious fanatics. They were perfectly willing to scrap the core constitutional tenant of separation of powers in the most banal, venal political convulsion we have witnessed in recent history.
While George Bush was governor of Texas, he signed a law that basically let the state override the wishes of parents and withdraw life support from a family member in a permanent vegetative state. Yet here was the master of hypocrisy and deception prattling on about “erring on the side of life” and using the anti-abortion euphemism “culture of life”—to shore-up his political base.
Then there was the spectacle of DOCTOR Bill Frist—who is also the Senate Majority Leader—diagnosing Terri Schiavo as NOT in a vegetative state. And how did Dr. Frist reach this diagnosis? From looking at television clips. I wonder how many Republicans and Evangelicals would accept that standard of care from their primary doctors? I also wonder how many of Dr. Frist’s colleagues in the medical profession would support that means of judgment?
Meanwhile, television’s talking airheads, Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough were assuring viewers that the majority of Americans support the position of Bush and Congressional Republicans. Of course Hannity and Scarborough have never been confused by the facts—and the facts are that in public opinion polls, Americans rejected the Bush-Republican position by margins of three and four to one. Shame on them all!!
While George Bush was governor of Texas, he signed a law that basically let the state override the wishes of parents and withdraw life support from a family member in a permanent vegetative state. Yet here was the master of hypocrisy and deception prattling on about “erring on the side of life” and using the anti-abortion euphemism “culture of life”—to shore-up his political base.
Then there was the spectacle of DOCTOR Bill Frist—who is also the Senate Majority Leader—diagnosing Terri Schiavo as NOT in a vegetative state. And how did Dr. Frist reach this diagnosis? From looking at television clips. I wonder how many Republicans and Evangelicals would accept that standard of care from their primary doctors? I also wonder how many of Dr. Frist’s colleagues in the medical profession would support that means of judgment?
Meanwhile, television’s talking airheads, Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough were assuring viewers that the majority of Americans support the position of Bush and Congressional Republicans. Of course Hannity and Scarborough have never been confused by the facts—and the facts are that in public opinion polls, Americans rejected the Bush-Republican position by margins of three and four to one. Shame on them all!!
Monday, March 21, 2005
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Pulling the plug on hypocracy
The Terri Schiavo debacle has produced more hypocrites per square inch of news space than Carter has liver pills! However, the Academy Award for hypocrisy must go to those Republican members of the U.S. Congress who are weeping crocodile tears over the removal of life support from a body that independent medical experts say has been in a persistent vegetative state for years.These are the same members of Congress who voted to facilitate an unnecessary pre-emptive war that has resulted in the death of over 1,500 Americans and an estimated 50 to 100 thousand Iraqis. Too bad we can't remove the political life support from these turkeys!
Atlanta shooting gets worse!
The Atlanta shooting story is even more damning to the courthouse cops as the circumstances of it are fleshed out! We now know that Nichols did not overpower the deputy and take a gun away from her! Rather, he overpowered her and took her keys away from her—then proceeded to take the gun from a lockbox. All of this was done under the surveillance lenses of television monitors that no one was watching!!
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Keystone Cops
Part of the tragedy of the Atlanta courtroom shootings is the ineptness of the local police in following common sense security and crime scene procedure. After the capture of Brian Nichols, Atlanta’s local law enforcement officials were on television alluding to the "good job" they did in apprehending the shooter. Right, and pigs fly in Atlanta!
The day before the shooting, police found two shanks (homemade knives) in Nichol's shoes. The day of the shooting their "good job" included no one watching the television monitors in the holding room and hallways from which Nichols launched his attacks.
Their "good job" included allowing a large muscular defendant, accused of a violent crime to be escorted by one female officer from the holding room to the courtroom.
Their "good job" included not securing the garage after attendants told police how to block the only exits.
After finding a reporter who had been pistol whipped and his green Honda commandeered,they put out an all points bulletin. Then, their "good job" failed to immediately secure and search the garage as a crime scene. While everyone was looking for a green Honda out on the roads of Atlanta, an attendant found it parked on an upper level of the garage.
To hear local and federal law enforcement tell it (with the aid of Ken and Barbie television reporting) their coordinated efforts brought the chase to an early conclusion. Right, and pigs fly in Atlanta!
Nichols was captured because of the courage and cool of one Ashley Smith, who’s 911 phone call served the shooter up on a platter.
___________________________sidebar____________________________________
On the Abrams Report on MSNBC, the program cut to Atlanta for comments by Joe (deep-think) Scarborough, the talking head apologist of Scarborough Country. How did Ashley Smith manage to do what she did? Joe offered the idea that Nichols, having seen the futile nature of his predicament simply made a cynical effort to humanize his persona , figuring that it might help when and if he was captured. Scarborough then speculated on how the reward money might be split–or if it should be awarded at all because of the wonderful job local and federal law enforcement did. When Abrams disabused him of minimizing Smiths courage and role in Nichols capture, Joe started backing and filling.
The day before the shooting, police found two shanks (homemade knives) in Nichol's shoes. The day of the shooting their "good job" included no one watching the television monitors in the holding room and hallways from which Nichols launched his attacks.
Their "good job" included allowing a large muscular defendant, accused of a violent crime to be escorted by one female officer from the holding room to the courtroom.
Their "good job" included not securing the garage after attendants told police how to block the only exits.
After finding a reporter who had been pistol whipped and his green Honda commandeered,they put out an all points bulletin. Then, their "good job" failed to immediately secure and search the garage as a crime scene. While everyone was looking for a green Honda out on the roads of Atlanta, an attendant found it parked on an upper level of the garage.
To hear local and federal law enforcement tell it (with the aid of Ken and Barbie television reporting) their coordinated efforts brought the chase to an early conclusion. Right, and pigs fly in Atlanta!
Nichols was captured because of the courage and cool of one Ashley Smith, who’s 911 phone call served the shooter up on a platter.
___________________________sidebar____________________________________
On the Abrams Report on MSNBC, the program cut to Atlanta for comments by Joe (deep-think) Scarborough, the talking head apologist of Scarborough Country. How did Ashley Smith manage to do what she did? Joe offered the idea that Nichols, having seen the futile nature of his predicament simply made a cynical effort to humanize his persona , figuring that it might help when and if he was captured. Scarborough then speculated on how the reward money might be split–or if it should be awarded at all because of the wonderful job local and federal law enforcement did. When Abrams disabused him of minimizing Smiths courage and role in Nichols capture, Joe started backing and filling.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Heroines--real and contrived!
Heroism–like beauty– is sometimes only in the eye of the beholder. For example those who protested the war in Vietnam were considered heros by some—and traitors by others.
Martin Luther King is viewed as a hero by most Americans today—but yesterday, many considered him an agitator, if not a communist.
I found Joe Scarborough’s grudging concession that Ashley Smith did something minimally courageous in her seven hours as the hostage of Brian Nichols, most interestng.This is the same Joe (deep-think) Scarborough who embraced Jessica Lynch as a heroine of the Iraq war.
Private Lynch was riding in a humvee with an Army maintenance unit when it was ambushed in southern Iraq. Eleven of her fellow soldiers were killed; five others were taken captive and freed.
The story in the Washington Post reported: "Blond and waiflike, Lynch was taken prisoner and held separately for nine days before a dramatic nighttime rescue from her hospital bed by a covert U.S. Special Operations unit, Task Force 20. "
"Initial news reports, including those in The Washington Post, which cited unnamed U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports, described Lynch emptying her M-16 into Iraqi soldiers. The intelligence reports from intercepts and Iraqi informants said that Lynch fought fiercely, was stabbed and shot multiple times, and that she killed several of her assailants."
""She was fighting to the death," one of the officials was quoted as saying. "She did not want to be taken alive."
The only problem was ---that aside from the details of the ambush and the death and capture of her fellow soldiers---the report was not true. Private Lynch described her experience as being balled up in the fetal position trying to stay alive. In the crash of the humvee, she suffered major injuries-- multiple fractures and compression to her spine— and was knocked unconscious. She was taken by her captors and abandoned at an Iraqi hospital where she was well treated by doctors eager to turn her over to U.S. troops.
She was uneventfully taken from the hospital---that Iraqi forces had vacated a day earlier--- by a Special Operations “full scale rescue” complete with a television camera crew trotting along with the troops recording it like a Cops TV Show.
Joe Scarborough bought into the entire romanticized version, adding his own icing by speculating out loud on what kinds of torture Private Lynch might have had to endure at the hands of her Iraqi captors---which also turned out not to be true.
The above is not to denigrate Jessica Lynch or her service to her country in anyway. She has been honest in her limited memory of what happened and brave during the treatments of her injuries. To her credit she did not join in the hype and propaganda coming from the Bush Administration and right wing media--trying to serve up a moral boosting "heroine" story to counter war critics.
Both Jessica Lynch and Ashley Smith shared terrifying experiences and truly feared for their lives. Lynch was unconscious and had no choice as the events played out. Ashley Smith had to consciously overcome her fear and mobilize her faculties to meet the challenge. In her response to the situation, she demonstrated courage that by any definition was heroic. She deserves that adjective and she also deserves all of the reward money!
Martin Luther King is viewed as a hero by most Americans today—but yesterday, many considered him an agitator, if not a communist.
I found Joe Scarborough’s grudging concession that Ashley Smith did something minimally courageous in her seven hours as the hostage of Brian Nichols, most interestng.This is the same Joe (deep-think) Scarborough who embraced Jessica Lynch as a heroine of the Iraq war.
Private Lynch was riding in a humvee with an Army maintenance unit when it was ambushed in southern Iraq. Eleven of her fellow soldiers were killed; five others were taken captive and freed.
The story in the Washington Post reported: "Blond and waiflike, Lynch was taken prisoner and held separately for nine days before a dramatic nighttime rescue from her hospital bed by a covert U.S. Special Operations unit, Task Force 20. "
"Initial news reports, including those in The Washington Post, which cited unnamed U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports, described Lynch emptying her M-16 into Iraqi soldiers. The intelligence reports from intercepts and Iraqi informants said that Lynch fought fiercely, was stabbed and shot multiple times, and that she killed several of her assailants."
""She was fighting to the death," one of the officials was quoted as saying. "She did not want to be taken alive."
The only problem was ---that aside from the details of the ambush and the death and capture of her fellow soldiers---the report was not true. Private Lynch described her experience as being balled up in the fetal position trying to stay alive. In the crash of the humvee, she suffered major injuries-- multiple fractures and compression to her spine— and was knocked unconscious. She was taken by her captors and abandoned at an Iraqi hospital where she was well treated by doctors eager to turn her over to U.S. troops.
She was uneventfully taken from the hospital---that Iraqi forces had vacated a day earlier--- by a Special Operations “full scale rescue” complete with a television camera crew trotting along with the troops recording it like a Cops TV Show.
Joe Scarborough bought into the entire romanticized version, adding his own icing by speculating out loud on what kinds of torture Private Lynch might have had to endure at the hands of her Iraqi captors---which also turned out not to be true.
The above is not to denigrate Jessica Lynch or her service to her country in anyway. She has been honest in her limited memory of what happened and brave during the treatments of her injuries. To her credit she did not join in the hype and propaganda coming from the Bush Administration and right wing media--trying to serve up a moral boosting "heroine" story to counter war critics.
Both Jessica Lynch and Ashley Smith shared terrifying experiences and truly feared for their lives. Lynch was unconscious and had no choice as the events played out. Ashley Smith had to consciously overcome her fear and mobilize her faculties to meet the challenge. In her response to the situation, she demonstrated courage that by any definition was heroic. She deserves that adjective and she also deserves all of the reward money!
Saturday, March 12, 2005
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